Court and Cloister: Studies in the Short Narrative in Honor of Glyn S. Burgess

Court and Cloister: Studies in the Short Narrative in Honor of Glyn S. Burgess, ed. by Jean Blacker and Jane H. M Taylor (Tempe, Arizona: ACMRS, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 517, 2018), lii + 294 pp.

As the founder of the British Branch, the organizer of the third Triennial Congress, and an honorary president, Glyn S. Burgess has long been a beloved member of the International Courtly Literature Society. During the fifteenth Triennial Congress in Lexington, he was honored with a series of panels and performances; and the present volume was announced at a celebratory dinner. Containing 15 scholarly essays and one ‘lyrical’ envoi, Court and Cloister is devoted to texts, themes, and approaches associated with Burgess’ intellectual production and research interests. Seeing in Burgess’ scholarship a tendency towards short narratives, Jean Blacker and Jane H. M. Taylor have assembled a collection of studies that explore brief texts and textual brevity in a multifaceted way.

As befitting a festschrift, the collection is preceded by a short biographical essay, a heartfelt note of appreciation from a former student, and a bibliography of Burgess’ nearly 250 publications from 1968-2017. Friends and acquaintances of Burgess will no doubt enjoy the anecdotal nature of these contributions. More generally, however, the prefatory remarks ground the volume in the humanity of the honoree and begin to explain the direction and shape of the recueil.

The 12-page introduction opens with Geoffrey of Vinsauf’s relative neglect of abbreviatio in his Poetria nova. It then turns to the authors of lays and of fabliaux, to Chrétien de Troyes and Christine de Pizan, to Hugh of St. Victor and Eustache Deschamps. Through a series of well-curated citations, Blacker and Taylor show how brevity and succinctness were indeed much prized by medieval writers; and in so doing, they argue for the importance of the collection’s central organizing point. As if to marry form to content, the introduction itself is brief and succinct, with the majority devoted to previewing the individual chapters.

Reflecting Burgess’ extensive work on Marie de France and the Old French narrative lay, fully half of the volume touches upon this subject. The remaining chapters deal, in turn, with chansons de femme, a 14th-century allegory called La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse, the St. Brendan legend in German and Dutch, the St. Brendan legend in Latin, Anglo-Norman, Occitan, and Catalan, the St. Patrick legend, Norman chronicles, and Wace’s Conception Nostre Dame. In spite of this rather heavy concentration followed by relative variety, it is important to note that the volume remains a cohesive whole. This is achieved by the consistent focus on ‘shortness’, whether in short narratives, in shortening longer narratives, in short episodes, or in shortness as an art.

The largest group of essays are those that focus primarily on short narratives by virtue of being short. Three chapters focus exclusively on critical readings of the lays. Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner returns to the idea of twinning, previously applied to Le Fresne,1 and here applied to Marie de France’s Milun and its ‘twin’, the anonymous Doon. Rupert T. Pickens establishes a list of ten outstanding aspects of Marie’s Latin-to-French translations2 and then shows how these same features play out in her purported Breton-to-French translation of the lays. Logan E. Whalen explores how anxieties over dynastic lineage within the narratives of Guigemar in particular, but also of Equitan, Le Fresne, and Yonec, reflect Marie’s own concern with her literary lineage and ‘literary posterity’ (56).

Three chapters address codicological concerns in manuscripts that contain lays, with or without other short texts. Leslie C. Brook takes a fine-toothed comb to Paris, MS. BnF. nouv. acq. fr. 1104 (ms. S) to provide a valuable comparison of the lays of Marie de France in S to the celebrated lays of ms. H (British Library MS. Harley 978). Richard Trachsler considers manuscripts containing both lays and fabliaux, ultimately focusing on Paris, MS. BnF. fr. 2168. Including three helpful tables, this chapter takes a mathematical and reconstitutive approach to the manuscript to propose that these récits brefs were included based on their geographic availability and/or to fill the blank pages left at the ends of folios. Finally, Karen Pratt looks at a textual “cluster” of four 183short texts that travel more or less together in four separate manuscripts: Constant du Hamel, Auberee, Cortois d’Arras, and the lai de l’Ombre. To explain why this cluster formed, Pratt analyzes a number of unifying factors – such as genre, local associations, common motifs, and common themes – that might have encouraged separate compilers to associate these tales with one another.

Two more chapters look at short genres beyond the lays and fabliaux. Karen J. Taylor makes a fascinating connection between the medieval chansons de toile and modern micro-narratives. Much as contemporary content creators make use of short, highly-individualized messages to upend socially-imposed norms, women’s voices in the chansons de toile challenge the violent, patriarchal, and/or religious metanarrative using similar techniques. Glynnis M. Cropp draws needed attention to the oft-overlooked La Voie de Povreté et de Richesse by surveying its manuscript tradition, its structure, its plot, and its eventual rewriting in the late 15th century.

One essay deals with the evolution of a single short episode. In a brief and not atypically cheeky fashion, Keith Busby asks the question, ‘What happened to St. Patrick’s serpents?’ Busby then traces the evolution of this legend from one Latin citation to another only to arrive at the answer in the Anglo-Norman Fouke le Fitz Waryn. Far be it from me to spoil their whereabouts here.

Two essays focus primarily on shortness as an art. Douglas Kelly demonstrates how brevity is used for emphasis in the lays and in romance. This brevity in turn forces the audience to recall larger traditions surrounding the text (such as Tristan in Chevrefoil or Ovid in the Lai de l’Ombre), thereby generating an implied amplification through abbreviation. In one of the denser and more delightful chapters, Eliza Hoyer-Millar analyzes Chaitivel to illustrate the ‘quickness’ and ‘speed’ (rapidità) with which Marie crafts her lay. In the most memorable section, Hoyer-Millar convincingly argues against the unneeded textual emendations and translations acrobatics that have plagued modern Chaitivel scholarship and shows how the text may indeed be read at face value in a way completely congruent with Marie’s extradiegetic commentary. Not coincidentally, this reading matches that of Burgess.3

Moving from the art of shortness, four essays address the art of shortening. Clara Stribosch looks at versions of the St. Brendan legend recorded in Germany in the late Middle Ages (including simple imagery) and compares them with the Latin Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis. She closely examines how the retellings have been shortened and concludes that these changes are specific to the intended audience(s). Margaret Burrell also looks at abbreviation in the St. Brendan, but she turns towards the west and south, comparing the Navigatio to Anglo-Norman, Occitan, and Catalan rewritings, with particular attention to the two latter. The Occitan and Catalan versions are highly condensed with some critical changes, again with an eye to the intended reader. Laurence Mathey-Maille explores the treatment of the dread Viking Hasting (or Hastein) within Norman chronicles, explaining how and why his role in history was reduced or even excised in favor of the Viking Rollo, first Duke of Normandy. Finally, Jean Blacker considers three 12th and 13th versions of the Assumption of the Virgin, one by Wace and two anonymous. All three are drawn from the Pseudo-Melito but each amplifies or abbreviates the source to different ends; and in seeing these choices as markers of the author’s voice, Blacker argues that the anonymous voice is no less distinct and no less worthy of consideration.

At the end of the volume, Peter F. Ainsworth takes the reader on a journey to the church of St. Giles, Holme. This personal essay, full of vibrant imagery and anecdotal charm, leaves the festschrift open-ended, with the hope of many such leisurely trips to come for the honoree.

In conclusion, Court and Cloister is a substantial volume on the theme of brevity; and thus, this review has become quite long. Every essay has numerous (and often quite lengthy) footnotes with full references. There is no works cited at the back of the book. Tables are not infrequent; and there are two illustrations and one map. Three indices, for names, manuscripts, and subjects, are also included. The result is a fitting tribute to a scholar whose prolificacy and tenacity are matched only by his kindness and generosity. In its treatment of the theme of ‘shortness’ in medieval literature, the volume surveys varied texts, asks varied questions, and uses varied approaches. It is thus an excellent choice for an academic library or the home library 185of an individual, whose research interests include the short narrative in all its forms.

Tamara Bentley Caudill

Jacksonville University

tcaudil1@ju.edu